Let’s do what we can to help change Washington

Every Monday morning I sit in my “office” and write this weekly column after a week of watching news programs, reading the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and perusing a number of websites that cover the political spectrum.

Today the big news story is President Obama’s swapping one American soldier for five high-ranking Taliban officers who’ve been held in Gitmo.

Details on this swap are still sketchy, but what is known is troubling. What’s more troubling? This is only one of many questionable stories oozing out of our nation’s capital.

By “questionable” I mean stories coming with many political claims and counter claims, denials and charges of conspiracies. I’m sick of these stories!

This is what Washington has become. And, we the voters have made Washington what it is today.

The problem is not that voters don’t understand how things work in Washington. The problem is voters are beginning to see much more clearly how things work in Washington and are disgusted with politics as usual.

In any given election, whether a party primary or general election, voters are usually offered a choice between an incumbent promising to “stay the course,” and a challenger offering “hope and change.” Few voters today want Washington to continue with business as usual, but “hope and change” has taken on a whole new connotation.

The elite mainstream media have been complicit with politics as usual in Washington, rooting on establishment candidates without formally endorsing anyone ... just to maintain their independent “credibility” among viewers and readers. It’s a sham.

Media outlets may as well be partners in campaigns of career politicians. And this partnership intimidates and confuses voters who want change, but fear voting against media bias that warns against extremism.

Everything is extreme these days.

The tea party has been around for five years now, born officially in the spring of 2009 around April 15 — tax day for half of us. The tea party is a populist movement, not a political party as many believe.

The movement can trace its roots to the silent majority of the 1980s when it was more popular to be conservative, and when we had a president who led our nation out of double-digit inflation, the severest recession since the Great Depression, foreign policy quagmires and long lines at gas stations selling gas at prices that rose daily, not to mention winning release of 52 hostages from Iran through the sheer force of being inaugurated president.

The Iranians feared Reagan. Not so much our current president whom no nation fears, except our allies.